Social Media and Political Polarization

 
Chris Bail
Duke University
 
Link to this Presentation: shorturl.at/iqvyH

Political Polarization in the U.S.

Political Polarization around the World

Political Polarization in Finland

Social Media Echo Chambers

 

Try this app at www.polarizationlab.com

Why not Break our Echo Chambers?

A Challenging Research Problem...

 

An Experiment with Twitter Bots

Designing Twitter Bots

The Cutest Animals on the Internet*

*according to my daughter

Effect of Following Bot for 1 Month

Effect of Following Bot for 1 Month

 

Copy of article linked on www.polarizationlab.com

Why?

 

Why?

 

Social Media as Social Learning

How the Prism Drives Extremism

How the Prism Mutes Moderates

The Social Media Prism

Bottom-up Solutions

Top-Down Solutions

A Simulated Social Media Platform

A Simulated Social Media Platform

 

A Simulated Social Media Platform

 

Research Design

 

Effect of Conversation on Depolarization

Effect of Conversation on Depolarization

 

Effects by Party

 

Thank You!

Political Polarization in the U.S.


Source: Pew Foundation

Addressing Causal Interference

Causal Interference

Identify Verification

Identity-Manipulation Experiment

 

Eligibility Criteria

 

Eligibility Criteria

 

1) Must be living in the United States

Eligibility Criteria

 

1) Must be living in the United States

2) Must visit Twitter at least three times per week

Eligibility Criteria

 

1) Must be living in the United States

2) Must visit Twitter at least three times per week

3) Must describe themselves as either a Republican or a Democrat

Initial Response Rate: 42.7%

Outcome: Ideological Consistency Scale

 

Outcome: Ideological Consistency Scale

 

1) “Stricter environmental laws and regulations cost too many jobs and hurt the economy.”

2) “Government regulation of business is necessary to protect the public interest.”

3) “Poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.”

4) “Immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents.”

5) “Government is almost always wasteful and inefficient.”

Outcome: Ideological Consistency Scale

 

6) “The best way to ensure peace is through military strength.”

7) “Racial discrimination is the main reason why many black people can't get ahead these days.”

8) “The government today can't afford to do much more to help the needy.”

9) “Business corporations make too much profit.”

10) “Homosexuality should be accepted by society.”

Control Variables

 

1) Frequency of Twitter use

2) Strength of partisanship

3) Interest in current events

4) Ideological homophily (online)

5) Ideological homophily (offline)

6) Demographics/SES (age, gender, income, education, region)

7) Many others…

Compliance

Attrition

Attrition

Quantitative Text Analysis

Liberal Bot Language

See my textnets package

Conservative Bot Language

See my textnets package

Representativeness

 

Representativeness

 

Representativeness

 

Representativeness

 

Power Analysis